10 Wildly Popular Apps that Could Help Save BlackBerry

by Michelle Maisto

Instagram is arguably the most glaringly obvious omission in BlackBerry World. The photo- and video-sharing app has in the neighborhood of 100 million users. Do you know who the most fun people to follow on Instagram are? BB10 users don’t.

Over and over again, when tech journalists asked about their experiences testing out the Z10 or Q10, they said they couldn’t go a full week with only the BlackBerry 10 phone because it was missing the Starbucks app.

Vine lets users create little looping videos that can be shared on social networks. As with Instagram, you can follow other users. It’s a mini phenomenon that BlackBerry users have been left out of.

Mobile users are increasingly turning to Google+ to share photos, articles and thoughts, and to hang out, no matter where their friends are.

During the first quarter of 2013, Netflix added more than 2 million subscribers, bringing its total to 29.2 million. At the time, that made it more popular in the United States than HBO. The app makes thousands of movies and TV shows available on a user’s phone. Netflix’s original series “House of Cards” recently received nine Emmy nominations.

People want access to their TV shows. Even the Windows Store offers the Hulu Plus app.

Pandora is the second most popular app in the Google Play store. It should be available on BlackBerry’s latest models, but it isn’t—at least not yet.

Snapchat, a quick-launching app that lets users snap and share a short-lived screenshot, photo, video or selfies (personal snapshots), already has more than 5 million daily users—and has inspired spin-off apps. Snap Save, a new iOS app, makes it possible to save Snapchats, which are supposed to disappear after they’re viewed.

No one’s going to be more productive because they have the Candy Crush app, but when waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, they’ll be a whole lot happier. It’s a top app in the iTunes store and the third most popular free Android app.

If mobile users were told, desert-island style, they could use only 10 apps, photo-editing app Aviary would make the cut on lots of lists. It has more than 50 million active users and has been used to edit more than 4 billion photos.